Avatar Languages Blog

Google has launched a 3D virtual world – or rather, a 3D chat space. I’ve been playing around with it to see what potential there is for language learning. It’s way too early to say what can or cannot be done, especially as it is quite buggy (there are already plenty of complaints on the blogosphere about how it can crash). However, what interests me is that it is browser based – a kind of combination of Second Life (a world where you can create your own content) and Exit Reality (a plugin to allow you to walk around MySpace and Facebook pages).

I think it is this ability to go 3D from within your browser that is going to make 3D internet widespread. I can well imagine that the current plugins (for Lively or Exit Reality) could become standard components of browsers – in which case we’re witnessing the web truly go 3D.

Lively can be embedded into web pages and blogs, just like YouTube videos. You can see an example “room” in Google Lively below (I will try to customize my own room, but I am having difficulties – perhaps because I haven’t worked out how or perhaps because a bug is getting in my way).

The obvious drawback for language learning is that there is no voice. However, it could be used with Skype alongside and I would be surprised if voice wasn’t added later. Something to keep an eye on…

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 2:11 pm and is filed under Avatars, Google Lively, Lively, Second Life, Teaching Methods, Technology, Website. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.